Christopher Walker reviews Manor at the National Theatre

Playwright Moira Buffini has turned her hand to a variety of different things but is perhaps best known for The Dig and her BBC adaptation of Jane Eyre.

She advocates “big, imaginative plays” and is a founder member of the Monsterists, a group of playwrights who promote new writing of large-scale work in the British theatre.

Buffini’s latest play Manor at the National is certainly on a large scale. Not least thanks to the talented Lez Brotherston’s gargantuan set. There is little subtlety, but a lot of laughs – the comedy is a lot more interesting than the drama.

This grand staging conjures up a tumble-down English manor called ‘Burnt Marple’ – Agatha Christie must be turning in her grave.

A state of disrepair is suggested by the walls seemingly falling inwards, and an enormous M C Escher style staircase. It all feels like it rather needs pulling together, which could be said of the play itself.

The ambition is certainly there in this piece.

The manor house is all too obviously meant to represent a battered old England.

A storm rages, and a cross section of characters seek refuge in its flimsy walls. This is the National’s latest questioning of the state of the nation, and the dangers of multi-culturalism not being fully embraced.

The proprietors of Burnt Marple are Lady Diana and her drug-fuelled Rockstar husband, Pete. Some might suggest theirs’ is an unlikely coupling, but I have come across it many times in real life.

This is comedy and Nancy Carroll and Owen McDonnell play their roles well, with the best laughs coming in the opening drunken scene between them.

First of the storm refugees, is the local vicar (the wonderful David Hargreaves) and two besieged holidaymakers, who amusingly call themselves “the Ripleys of Balham,” presumably in response to the grand surroundings. An NHS nurse and her teenage daughter, Dora.

Ripley is the likeable hero of this piece (the excellent Michele Austin) who’s nursing skills are much in demand. As are her mothering skills. Daughter (Shaniqua Okwok) rebels, rants, and discovers her own sexuality, helped by Diana’s daughter Isis (Liadan Dunlea).

Pitted against these angels are several demons (characters are rather straightforward in this).

Shaun Evans gives a strong performance as Ted Farrier, the leader of a fictional far right political party Albion.

Of course, Britain doesn’t have a fascist party which is a serious threat, and hasn’t ever had one – Mosley was laughed out of every election. As such, Farrier and Albion are an invented nightmare (as if we haven’t got enough already), and it’s hard to get worked up against a fantasy.

Lady Diana does get worked up, however, by Farrier’s (or rather Shaun Evans’s) good looks as he strides around in black wellies (rather worryingly resembling jack boots).

His two followers are a racist girlfriend (a menacing Amy Forrest) again a fantasy villain – such a person would never be employed in a contemporary UK university let alone make Professor as suggested. Anton (the charming Peter Bray), equally unbelievably, is a mixed-race party member.

They soon rope in Perry (Edward Judge), an unemployed overweight white working-class male, constantly “fat shamed” by the other characters. The metropolitan elitism is uncomfortably obvious here.

The playwright’s sister, Fiona Buffini, directs – a case not so much of nepotism as ‘sororism.’

If Monsterist theatre is about confirming our prevailing prejudices with a series of stereotypes and straw dolls, it’s not very challenging drama. It is, however, very funny. And the special effect at the end is outstanding.

To make up your own mind go to – https://events.nationaltheatre.org.uk/events/82280